Hijacked by Jesusಮಾದರಿ

Brand Swop

Recently my Google search engine came up with a staggering 904 million hits in 0.13 seconds for the term “sin”, compared to a meager 131 million hits for the term “grace” (0.12 seconds). In just 0.05 seconds there were 8.360 million hits for the term “sinner”. Of course this doesn’t prove much. We know that Google only searches for the presence of terms on the web, irrespective of their meaning in different contexts, but still ... I mean, more than eight to one! 

Perhaps this does tell a story, a sad one at that! Sin wins. Sin outnumbers grace in too many ways. Even worse: sin is still very much alive and well, in spite of the church’s massive efforts at being against it for most of the time. Is this brand failure at its best ... or at its worst? 

In church we’ve placed too much emphasis on the wrong term for far too long without much positive effect. Brand failure—this is the present condition in which Christianity finds itself in far too many places. The reason: too much sin talk, too little grace walk. 

Jesus rejected the external treatment of symptoms to cure “sinners’ disease”. He knew that only God’s sticky grace changes people, not man-made efforts at minimizing the outward spread of sin. Real change always flows over from the other side, from God’s side of the fence. Jesus does grace best of all. 

This is what He excels in. He hands out spiritual food to dying, failing, barren, fruitless fig trees like you and me. Jesus always does grace in spite of us, not because of who or what we are. He cares for UNgrace-ful people like us! He spoils us. He covers us in streams of blessings from heaven. He makes the chance of a lifetime on our behalf! He hijacks us through His amazing kindness.